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Have You Contributed to NYSIBPAC This Year?
If not...now is the time! We need your help in this statewide election year to support candidates and committees who understand community banks' needs. Can we count on you?
CLICK HERE for our 2016 PAC contribution form. Help support IBANYS' political action efforts in New York State.
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For more information, visit:
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Our Convention Countdown Is On:
Only 53 Days Left Until . . .
IBANYS' ANNUAL CONVENTION:
October 3-5, The Turning Stone Resort:
As we enjoy the final few weeks of summer, don't forget that Autumn is right around the corner. This Fall will be highlighted by IBANYS' Annual Convention
October 3-5 at The Turning Stone Resort in Verona, New York.
New York community bankers, IBANYS' preferred providers, associate members, sponsors and exhibitors will gather
to enjoy an agenda filled with unique networking opportunities, outstanding speakers and presentations and great recreation activities. We'll hear from
three notable keynote speakers:
- Ray O'Conor (former President of Saratoga National Bank & Trust and a Past IBANYS Chairman)
- Steve Greenberg, veteran New York State politics analyst/ commentator/Siena College Pollster
- R. Scott Heitkamp, Chairman-elect of the Independent Community Bankers of America® (ICBA) and President and CEO of ValueBank Texas in Corpus Christi, Texas. He's also a previous chairman of the Independent Bankers Association of Texas.
Ray O'Conor is the author of "She Called Him Raymond: A True Story of Love, Loss, Faith and Healing" -- a candidate for the 2016  Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction. Ray has also been a newspaper columnist, Special Agent with the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Border Patrol Agent. His presentation will share the story behind his book, and provide a look into the true tale of two ordinary people who led extraordinary lives during the most tumultuous of times. Ray will kick off our convention Monday evening, Oct. 3.
R. Scott Heitkamp is the Chairman-Elect of the
Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA),  the only national trade association that exclusively represents community banks. Scott will bring the ICBA perspective on community banking, and an update on the Washington, D.C. legislative, regulatory scene and the value of ICBA membership.
Steve Greenberg will preview the critically important 2016 election for community banks. Every single member of the New York
 State Legislature and New York Congressional Delegation is up for election, and control of the New York State Senate is definitely expected to be hotly contested. A number of key congressional races are also up for grabs, and results could impact the balance of control. Steve will be our closing speaker Wednesday morning, Oct. 5.
In addition to our keynoters, we'll have a full menu of speakers, panels and presentations on the most important issues and trends impacting New York community banks. They
will focus on
innovative topics and trends in banking such as cashless societies, as well the basic "blocking and tackling" of banking -- such as building a successful ERM. Check out the links below for all the details!
Along
with the important and timely business program, we would like you to have a little fun as well. You can register to play golf, take a little time and enjoy the spa, do a little shopping and participate in IBANYS' first "Texas Hold'em" poker  tournament. We also have a few other surprises that are being planned.
There will be plenty of great food and drink, outstanding opportunities to network with fellow bankers and to learn more about the companies that support our industry throughout the year, and sponsor and support IBANYS and our convention annually.
Last but not least,
our traditional PAC auction is the highlight of our convention -- with all proceeds going to our state political action committee, NYSIBPAC. Every year, we have great auction items and I look forward to having more at the Turning Stone 2016. PLUS, we'll have
our traditional business show, and we're bringing back last year's successful "6-Minute Drills" for preferred providers/associate members.
We are looking for a great turnout, so register early and book your rooms ASAP. As always we thank you for your support and let's make this convention the best yet!
IBANYS also thanks our supports and sponsors who are already on board for the convention:
- ACBB
- Continuity
- Federal Home Loan Bank of New York
- ICBA
- Pentegra Retirement Services
- Roosevelt & Cross
- Sandler O'Neill & Partners
- T.Gschwender & Associates, Inc.
- Wolf & Company
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Associate Members, Preferred Providers, Exhibitors:
Click Here
IBANYS' Annual Regional
Security Conferences
Save these dates, and plan to attend IBANYS' Annual Regional Security Conferences --
October 19
(
Rochester
Marriott Airport)
and October 20 (Comfort Inn & Suites in Castletown, in the
Capital District
). These programs will once again provide top-notch sessions with outstanding speakers, who will address important security subjects, issues and trends impacting New York community banks.
Watch for more information on program and registration coming soon!
IBANYS New "Innovation Committee"
Seeking Members
IBANYS is seeking volunteers to serve as members of our new Innovation Committee. The new committee will be comprised of executive bankers to hear presentations on products and services that may help New York community banks increase their revenue, reduce expenses and increase efficiency.
The first meeting of the committee will be held October 5 at The Turning Stone after the conclusion of IBANYS Annual Convention. Meetings will be held two or three times each year, and will introduce new or provide more details on products and services currently in the market. I
nterested in serving on the Innovation Committee?Contact
John Witkowski ([email protected]) or Linda Gregware ([email protected]). We already have three volunteer members, and are looking to add seven more to bring the total membership to ten.
Q2 Enforcement Actions:
What We Can Learn, And How To Avoid Being The Next Victim.
Aug 11, 1:00pm - 2:00pm ET
Regulatory scrutiny is at an all-time high and bankers across the entire country are reporting that their exams are tougher than ever. In this session you'll learn why as we analyze the most current trends in enforcement actions over the last quarter. More importantly, you'll learn the steps you can take now to prepare your financial institution to withstand the increased regulator scrutiny!
In addition to Compliance Officers, this complimentary Webinar will be valuable for all bank executives. In today's regulatory environment building a bulletproof compliance program is tougher than ever - but you'll learn how it CAN be done. The presenter will be Pam Perdue, EVP - Regulatory Operations, Continuity.
After participating, you'll be equipped to:
- Identify the key regulatory enforcement trends across the country, and in your region - who is getting in trouble for what, and why?
- Use enforcement action data strategically and proactively in your organization
- Standardize and automate elements of your compliance program so that regulatory changes are easier to handle
- Learn regulatory best practices from some of the country's top-performing community financial institutions
Who should Attend:
CEOs, CFOs, COOs, Chief Compliance Officers, Chief Risk Officers, Compliance Officers and other regulatory and risk management professionals.
Vining Sparks & ICBA Securities Webinar - Mortgage Market With a Focus on CMO's
ICBA Securities, the institutional broker/dealer of the ICBA, will present a webinar on August 16 exclusively for the state associations that endorse ICBA Securities, as well as other community banks. This is the fifth in the 2016 webinar series.
Mortgage securities have found favor with portfolio managers. Collectively, amortizing instruments constitute more than half of the total investment portfolios of community banks and are therefore a major driver of earnings. They also have unique characteristics that can help an institution manage its liquidity and interest rate risk, when used properly. This webinar will analyze the current market for mortgage-related securities and will provide examples of "off-the-run" securities that can produce incremental yield.
What You'll Learn:
- The importance of MBSs to a community bank
- Supply/demand dynamics in the current market
- How to analyze non-generic mortgage securities
- Identifying value in the CMO market
- Which MBSs perform well in a curve flattening
The webinar will last approximately 1 hour.
Presenter James Plunkett is Director of Investment Product Strategies at Vining Sparks. He previously, managed the investment portfolio and served as chair of the ALCO for bank holding companies with assets over $20 billion. His background includes management of mutual fund portfolios, hedging debt issuance and loan originations, and asset/liability modeling.
ICBA & Dell Offer Preferred Pricing
For Member Banks
Do you know that the
Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) and Dell Computers have an agreement in place that
allows community banks that belong to ICBA to take advantage of  preferred pricing on computer equipment such as work stations, servers and laptops? Participating banks will also have access to a dedicated account executive familiar with ICBA's program to advocate for them with appropriate Dell teams, including technical experts.
To check the August - October 2016 specials
Click here
GOVERNMENT RELATIONS
The New York State Legislature is adjourned until the new session begins in January, 2017, and Congress stands in recess until September. Nevertheless, legislative and regulatory actions continue to impact new York community banks.
Call Reports for Small Banks Would Be Shorter Under New Plan
By Lalita Clozel
"The American Banker"
August 5, 2016
"Financial regulators issued a long-awaited proposal Friday that would allow institutions with less than $1 billion in assets to file a short-form call report.
Issued on behalf of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the proposal said the changes came about as a result of outreach efforts with community banks.
"The agencies aimed to balance institutions' requests for a less burdensome regulatory reporting process with [their] need for sufficient data" to monitor banks, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council said.
The proposal also called for some simplifying changes to larger banks' call reports. "The agencies recognize that institutions operate under widely varying business models, which affects the nature and extent of their activities and translates into differences in the amount of information to be reported," the FFIEC said.
Stakeholders will have two months to submit comments on the proposal once it is published in the Federal Register.
Once it has received comments on this first iteration of the plan, the FFIEC will open up public feedback on a second version for another 30 days. The final plan will then be sent to the White House's Office of Management and Budget for approval.
The agencies aim to begin implementing the proposal on March 31, 2017."
The Independent Community Bankers of America stated: "The quarterly call report is among the many excessively burdensome regulations limiting the ability of community banks to support local jobs and economic growth. A streamlined report would provide sufficient information for regulators while being significantly less burdensome to prepare for community banks nationwide."
ICBA THANKS COMMUNITY BANKERS FOR STANDING UP, STEPPING UP AND SPEAKING UP!
"The short form call report is an ICBA born and breed project from start to finish. ICBA started this campaign nearly three years ago 
and it is finally starting to pay off. Recall that ICBA initiated a Short Form Call Report petition that garnered 15,000 signatures that we presented to the banking agencies... If there was ever a case why ICBA should exist this is it. This would not even be a notion in the regulatory agency minds were it not for ICBA." He added he was proud of ICBA for this breakthrough. ICBA's petition also cited
data from its 2014 Community Bank Call Report Burden Survey which found the annual cost of preparing the call report has increased for 86% of respondents over the past 10 years.
Other Items:
- A.6621-B (Kim)/S.579-C (Squadron) was delivered to Governor Cuomo for his signature on August 8. The bill provides a preference for micro loans (loans to businesses with fewer than five employees) under the small business revolving loan fund program.
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The FDIC proposed amendments to its supervisory guidelines to expand banks' rights to appeal examination decisions.
The FDIC also issued draft examination guidance for third-party lending, expanding the agency's current guidance on third-party risk management and addressing related strategic, operational, credit and compliance risks.
- Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump called for a temporary suspension of all new federal regulations during a speech Tuesday, but even if he wins the White House, stalling or rolling back financial rules may prove to be beyond his reach. "Upon taking office, I will issue a temporary moratorium on new agency regulations, Trump told the Detroit Economic Club.
- A severe economic crisis impacting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could require a $125.8 billion infusion from the U.S. Treasury to keep the government-sponsored enterprises operational, down from a high-end estimate of $157.3 billion last year, according to stress test results released Monday by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The low end of the estimated infusion, termed a "Treasury draw," in a severe global recession would be $49.2 billion, FHFA said.
- The White House Council of Economic Advisers said the Dodd-Frank Act is not the cause of a decrease in the number of community banks, which have complained about higher compliance costs as a result of the 2010 law. Community banks have expanded their lending faster than larger firms, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., with lending up 8.9% year-over-year at the end of the first quarter of 2016.
- Eight of the biggest U.S. banks are joining forces to combat cyber-heists, which have exposed weaknesses in banks' security frameworks in recent months. The group includes JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and members are expected to share information about cyberthreats, prepare comprehensive response plans and conduct "war games."
Guest Column:
"Economic Outlook by Alan Blinder
August 2016"
By Alan S. Blinder,
Vice Chairman and Co-Founder,
Promontory Interfinancial Network;
Professor of Economics and Public Affairs, Princeton University
The Fed's Wednesday message was summarized mainly in a single new sentence. And markets, being used to scrutinizing adjectives and adverbs, take entire new sentences seriously. This one stated: "Near-term risks to the economic outlook have diminished."
That was Fedspeak for, "compared to our June meeting, (a) we now feel confident that the horrible jobs report for May was a fluke, (b) we are no longer worried about Brexit, a
nd (c) the forecast for GDP growth in the second and third quarters looks pretty decent." In other words, the Fed was sounding the "all clear" for serious thinking about another interest rate hike.
But part (c) of the "all clear" lasted just two days. On Friday, the Commerce Department shocked just about everyone by reporting that the GDP growth rate in the second quarter was a paltry 1.2% and also by
revising down the previous two quarters. Growth in the past three quarters now averages just 1%. Yes, a chunk of the bad news came from inventory destocking and, hence, is inherently transitory. But a somewhat disturbing pattern is developing: One "transitory" piece of bad news after another keeps holding
the U.S. economy back from 2%+ growth.
To be sure, Friday's report was not bad enough to cause panic at the Fed--not even close. But unless things change fast, it probably was bad enough to take a September rate hike off the table. More generally, the "all clear" signal is no longer so clear.
IBANYS Member Services Programs:
Are
YOU Taking Full Advantage?
IBANYS has introduced
several initiatives
which can
provide real value and bottom line benefits to New York community banks
. Take a moment to review these programs. If you have any questions, contact us, or visit
www.ibanys.net. We hope you'll decide to take full advantage of these exciting opportunities.
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IBANYS and NYBDC have announced a partnership with Excelsior Growth Fund (EGF), a nonprofit Community Development Financial Institution formed by New York Business Development Corporation (NYBDC). EGF is endorsed by IBANYS as the exclusive online lending partner for association
 members.
EGF provides innovative financial solutions and business advisory services to underserved small businesses in New York State through a fast, simple and secure online lending platform. Its core product is the EGF SmartLoan™, which features amounts up to $100,000, approvals within 1-2 days and disbursements within one week. Importantly, interest rates a fraction of those typically offered by online lenders.
EGF offers banks a unique customer retention solution when a customer either does not qualify for a bank's loan offerings, or is seeking the fast,
transparent process available through online lenders. To facilitate retention, EGF shares performance information on the referred loan portfolio on a quarterly basis and offers the opportunity for the bank to purchase referred loans at par at any time.
Additional details on the EGF SmartLoan, including eligibility criteria, are available at:
- The "My Wellness Resource Card" offers a low-cost, non-traditional program to help community banks to save time and money. It helps provide on demand health care from U.S. board-certified doctors who provide
 diagnosis, treatment options and necessary prescriptions via unlimited telephone medical consultations. The My Wellness program offers discounts and significant savings on a variety of medical and dental products, and is designed to improve productivity, decrease absenteeism and boost morale without straining your bottom line. It's an exciting new way for community banks to provide health care benefits, reduce cost and retain employees. For more information, contact Alan Justin, Managing Partner at (716) 907-5500.
- We also joined the "Cure the Blue" effort to raise funds and awareness regarding prostate
 cancer in New York State. We are partnering with the Buffalo Bills Alumni Foundation, and hope to see a number of IBANYS members participate. Please join us in supporting this worthwhile cause. Visit www.curetheblue.com to get involved!
New York Community Bank Officers,
Directors & Employees:
Sign Up For IBANYS Webinars!
On a daily basis, New York's community banks must cope with an ever wider array of challenges. Your officers, board members and employees understand that their responsibilities -- and, potential liabilities -- are not about to diminish. Is YOUR community bank providing the information and tools required to help them meet their responsibilities, and properly prepare the bank for the future? Here's an outstanding -- and convenient -- way to do so. Sign them up for
IBANYS' webinars, designed to meet the needs of New York community banks. The webinars are effective and cost-effective. Your officers, directors and employees can participate directly from the ease and comfort of their offices. Over the past two years, the number of bankers participating in IBANYS webinars has risen significantly. Join
your industry and association peers and take full advantage of these timely webinars.
Review our upcoming programs by clicking the link below:
https://ibanys.fed.financialedinc.com/store/webinar
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. . .Promontory Interfinancial Network
Promontory Interfinancial Network offers financial technology services that have a number of public policy and other benefits, including promoting financial empowerment at a local level and financial stability at local, state, and nationals levels.
Promontory Interfinancial Network offers a range of profit-building solutions that help financial institutions. In this complex world, Promontory Interfinancial Network provides innovative, impactful solutions. Building on the strong relationships within its Network, which is composed of approximately 3,000 financial institutions, the company offers unique services that bring Network members and other key constituents together in a way that enables each to benefit from the "power of many." Promontory Interfinancial Network offers unique services that bring banks and other institutions together in a way that enables
each to benefit from the power of many - enabling them to offer services that otherwise might be too difficult or costly to offer on their own.
Promontory enables insitutions to offer services that otherwise might be too difficult, too costly, or impossible to offer on their own.
Promontory's liability- and asset-side solutions
provide bankers with tools that help them to bring the power of the Network to their bank's balance sheets. Specifically, these tools can help a bank to access larger and more diverse growth opportunities, increase the stability of its customer relationships, gain funding and operational efficiencies, and maintain greater flexibility with its funding options and asset portfolio as it responds to changing market demands.
Bank Assetpoint® is a single point to buy and sell a variety of bank assets. It enables participants to search or showcase a broad range of bank asset listings and provides tools, to make asset purchases and sales more efficient. In addition, it is home to the Assetpoint CommunitySM, which facilitates connections with specialty service providers who can help complete deals.
Residential Mortgage Network is staffed with a team of mortgage professionals that possesses in-depth knowledge of banks and the residential mortgage market. These professionals can help participants to identify secondary market opportunities to buy and sell pools of residential mortgage whole loans or to access secondary market correspondent solutions from national mortgage firms - firms that buy residential mortgage whole loans in the secondary market from banks that originate and fund the loans.
ICS®, CDARS®, IND®, and Yankee Sweep® enable banks and other financial institutions to build strong, multi-million-dollar relationships; replace higher-cost deposits; reduce collateralization; and purchase cost-effective funding.
For details, contact Steve Kinner, Senior Managing Director, Sales at (866) 776-6426, ext. 3445, email
[email protected].
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. . .That the Federal Reserve was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, in response to a series of financial panics, that showed the need for central control of the monetary system. The primary motivation for creating the Federal Reserve System was to address banking panics. Other purposes are stated in the Federal Reserve Act, such as "to furnish an elastic currency, to afford means of rediscounting commercial paper, to establish a more effective supervision of banking in the United States, and for other purposes". Current Fed Chair Janey Yellen is the 15th person -- and first woman -- to hold the position. The longest serving Chair was William M. Martin, who served 18 years and 9 months, from 1951 to 1970.
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New York community banks play a key role in our state and local economies. Help spread the good news among your customers, business and elected leaders and media! |
| Click here for quotes from Governor Cuomo and DFS Superintendent Lawsky extolling the performance and value of New York community banks. |
| Click here for the full NYS Study on community banking. |
| Click here to read IBANYS President & CEO John Witkowski's comments on the new tax changes and benefits for New York community banks as approved in the 2014-15 State Budget. Click here for IBANYS' letter to the Editor of Consumer Reports Magazine correcting failure to mention community banks as an alternative to using "big banks." _________________________________ |
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John J. Witkowski
President and Chief Executive Officer
Stephen W. Rice
Director of Government Relations and Communications
Linda Gregware
Director of Administration and Membership Services
William Y. Crowell, III
Legislative Counsel
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